By Paul Amoroso, an explosive hazards specialist at Assessed Mitigation Options (AMO) consultancy
BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT
While many will acknowledge the rationale in approaching security challenges with an appropriately resourced strategy, implemented through various operational plans, and executed via various tactical methods, the requirement and challenge of synchronizing these effectively can be extremely difficult. These difficulties not only manifest themselves in delivery of practical measures to provide security by aligning strategic vision through operational concepts to tactical effects, but can also prove challenging for those involved in their development, implementation, and sustainment in conceptually aligning these three elements in terms of understanding how they fit together. Through the example of an organization attempting to effectively operate within an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) threat environment, the conceptual framework of the tree of instability and insecurity will be outlined as a means to illustrate both the reality of these challenges and how ideally, they may be aligned. This alignment of strategic vision, operational plans and tactical methods and actions, may be considered as a holistic approach. A holistic approach to an IED threat in a given operating environment, reveals many commonalities in addressing other security issues faced by organisations required to operate within insecure and unstable operating environments. This paper proposes that when operating within an insecure and unstable operational environment, that considering the conceptual framework provided by the tree of instability and insecurity, may act as a means to appreciate the requirements of what the synchronization of efforts at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels entails. It is intended that when such synchronization of efforts between the three levels is coupled with a broad threat spectrum approach, a holistic approach to instability and insecurity can be fostered.
INTRODUCTION
When an organization is required to operate within an IED threat environment, various threat mitigation measures can be implemented to attempt to reduce the assessed threat to an acceptable level in line with the organization’s accepted risk threshold. Such counter IED efforts at the tactical level are typically time, capital, and resource intensive and if not appropriately implemented and supported can be of limited success. Two of the manifest challenges for organizations required to operate in an IED threat environment are that the action counteraction cycle is not a race that can be easily won and secondly an overly IED focused approach can leave an organization exposed to other security threats within the operational environment. Considering the action counteraction cycle within counter IED, when an organization attempts to harden itself against IED attacks, whether such attacks are through direct intentional targeting or indirect unintentional proximity at the time of an attack, it typically involves massive investment of time, capital, and resources and one that is not guaranteed to succeed. One key lesson learned since, circa 2004 from western efforts to counter the use of IEDs, is that it is almost impossible to out armor an IED threat that is evolving. That is, the IED arms race is extremely time, capital, and resource intensive and often exhausting. Added to these challenges is that an IED with a large enough explosive charge or appropriately configured charge can be engineered to defeat all practical armored vehicles and reinforced structures. It is for these reasons that all counter IED efforts invested in need to fit the challenging criteria of being:
- Simple for implementation, in often challenging operational environments, by practitioners with a wide array of training, education, skills and ability levels;
- Agile and responsive enough to respond to the likely evolution in the IED threat which implicitly requires the ability to effectively monitor such threat evolution;
- Realistic in terms of resources allocated to support its requirements from development through implementation to sustainment;
- Timely and responsive in addressing and countering the use of IEDs, which is a complex and challenging endeavor, being notably labor intensive; however, it is essential that benefits of the investments made are seen to deliver results in terms of protection of personnel, equipment, assets, and interests in an acceptable and often relatively short time frame. Such time frames can be driven by political or project management cycles.
The requirement for a timely return on investment in terms of protection provided, requires the efforts employed to counter IEDs to be agile in that such efforts are altered as the threat evolves so as to remain responsive due to the action counteraction cycle i.e., the counter IED efforts being employed must evolve over time and remain threat aligned.
IEDs AS A TACTICAL SECURITY ISSUE
Counter IED efforts implemented may be considered as effective, when an organization’s personnel, equipment, assets, and interests are protected against IED attack over a sustained period of time. In such situations, the IED ceases to be an effective weapons system for aggressors and a decrease in their use may result. While from a counter IED centric perspective, this may be considered success, it can often have simply resulted in a shift of the threat to a softer target or another attack vector. For example, if an element of a security force hardens itself to IED attack, i.e., decreases its vulnerability to IED attack, the aggressor often switches its targeting to a softer more vulnerable target set. Such softer targets could be other more vulnerable elements of the security forces or their allies, for example, elements of the security force’s support base within the community. In this case, from a counter IED perspective the IED problem has merely been transferred rather than actually addressed. In the case that counter IED efforts result in a notable reduction in IED use, or in a best-case scenario an abandonment of their use, it is highly unlikely that the aggressors will abandon their use of violence solely on the counter IED successes implemented against them. They will most likely switch to the use of another attack vector or weapons system to progress their agenda. This highlights that IEDs are best considered as a weapon system employed when the prevailing security situation permits their use. IEDs are the tactical manifestation of a security threat rooted in broader security issues present in the operational environment. It is these broader security issues that support the employment of IEDs. As such, since IEDs are a tactical security problem, the collective response to their employment is best considered to be counter IED, which is itself an amalgamation of tactical responses. A military analogy to this would be the employment of the vast array of anti-armor weapon systems, platforms, protection measures, countermeasures, planning, staffing and associated logistical support to counter enemy armor. This combination of efforts to counter enemy armor may be considered anti-armor capabilities. While such anti-armor capabilities are broad and multi-functional, they are all tactical. In the same sense counter IED is best viewed as the collective tactical responses to protect one’s own personnel, equipment, assets, and interests against the use of IEDs.
OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENT THAT SUPPORTS IED USE
When one considers IEDs as a weapon system employed by an aggressor to best suit their agenda, and counter IED the tactical responses to mitigate their effectiveness, the wider issues of a more holistic approach to address what facilitates or supports their use is raised. Such deeper contextual issues require an examination of and understanding of the wider operational environment. While IED use can arise within stable states and societies, typically in a sporadic nature, linked most often to criminal activity or standalone external terrorist attacks, widespread IED use is more common in fragile, fragmenting, or failed regions, states, or localities. It is necessary to understand the security issues and threats which arise in such fragile, fragmenting, or failed regions, states, or localities to have a more holistic approach to address the factors that facilitate or support IED use. This idea of the operating environment that facilitates or support IED use is one that lends itself to the concept of the prevailing security ecosystem. If one considers that certain conditions are necessary for IEDs to be employed within a given security ecosystem one may view such prevailing conditions to be the fertile ground that supports their development, sustainment, and potential growth.
IED USE – ONE OF MULTIPLE SECURITY ISSUES WITHIN AN OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENT
The reality of the risk posed by IEDs to any organization operating in a fragile, fragmenting, or failed region, state, or locality, is that it is typically only one such security issue that they must contend with. A region, state, or locality that is fragile, fragmenting or failed typically arises when the local operational environment is one in which there is instability and insecurity. The local conditions which give rise to and facilitate instability and insecurity may be considered to be the root causes of security, and stability issues, and by extension development challenges in a given region, state, or locality. Such root causes include issues such as:
- Poor governance
- Energy scarcity
- Food insecurity
- Overpopulation
- Repressive security forces
- Joblessness
- Geopolitics
- Local factors e.g., tribal competition and clan dynamics
When such roots of instability and insecurity are present radical and violent extremist organizations of many persuasions, from criminal enterprises to insurgency groups, to terrorist organizations may act in order to address these issues and or exploit them to their agendas. This in turn can manifest itself in a large array of stability and security issues which can include:
- Criminality e.g., racketeering, narcotics trading
- Human rights abuses
- Smuggling of illicit material
- Armed conflict
- Terrorism
- Cyber crime
- Small arms and light weapons (SALW) threats
- Human trafficking
- Extortion
- IED use
- Banditry
- Warlordism
BROAD SPECTRUM SECURITY RESPONSES
The threat posed by IEDs is typically one which is present alongside and interconnected to other local security issues. As such the response to IED use needs to account for these other connected issues and the inter-relationship between them. It is important that an organization when operating in an IED threat environment does not become too focused on the IED threat at the expense of addressing the other security threats it may face. Ideally, the security system employed, requires an agile approach in which parallel and complementary responses to the array of security threats it faces are in place. When an organization adopts such an agile approach involving parallel and complementary responses to the array of security issues it faces, it can be said to have a broad threat spectrum approach to its security. Such broad threat spectrum approaches to security will typically not be the responsibility of any one organization required to operate in a fragile, failing, or failed state, region, or locality, but typically a collective one, coordinated amongst allied organisations. Contending with and countering the radical and violent extremist organisations who exploit the conditions of instability and insecurity to their agenda requires a broad- spectrum local authority and state response. Such broad-spectrum responses typically involve security forces, judicial system initiatives and often social services activities. These can take place under many guises and include inter alia counter radicalization and deradicalization programs, violent extremism prevention initiatives as well as COIN and counter terrorism efforts.
ADDRESSING THE ROOT CAUSES OF INSTABILITY AND INSECURITY
Ideally when such a broad threat spectrum approach is implemented, the safety of an organization’s personnel, equipment, assets, and interests should be adequately provided for in line with the organization’s risk management system. However, the control measures implemented to mitigate such security threats will rarely act to address the root causes that act as driving factors of the instability and insecurity.
Such root causes facilitate such security threats to exist and their associated attack vectors to be employed. To address the root causes of such insecure and unstable operational environments, typically require strategic initiatives and comprehensive approaches which address such driving factors. Such comprehensive approaches will typically require a combination of initiatives that are political, economic, social, as well as security in nature. Such strategic initiatives will be the responsibility of regional governing bodies, states, or international organisations to implement and sustain.
THE TREE OF INSTABILITY AND INSECURITY
An analogy to frame the complexities of the use of IEDs and the associated threat mitigation responses is contained in the concept of the tree of instability and insecurity. The roots of this tree are the local factors that provide the fertile conditions for instability and insecurity to emerge. These are then reacted to or exploited by radical and violent extremist organisations that then employ various means and methods that subsequently manifest themselves as security threats. Radical and violent extremist organisations who exploit such conditions may be considered the conduit that connect these conditions to the manifestations of insecurity and stability. The various manifestations of instability and insecurity are often the most visible and pressing security issues for an organization when operating in such an unstable and insecure environment. These manifestations may be viewed as the branches of the security threats which they face. The linkage provided by radical and violent extremist organisations between the manifestations of instability and insecurity to the favourable conditions that allow them to exist, allows one to visualise this interrelationship as the tree of instability and insecurity, with radical and violent extremist organisations considered as the trunk of the tree.
CONCEPTUALISING A HOLISTIC APPROACH
Any focus on one branch of the tree of instability and insecurity may involve cutting a branch from the tree and removing it; however, the tree will remain intact, and the branch will likely regenerate and regrow in time with no effect on the other branches or security issues. A more effective approach at the tactical level involves one that addresses all branches simultaneously in what we have called a broad spectrum security response. However, this is a time, capital and resource intensive approach and can typically exceed the time, capital, and resources available to an organisation. This in turn can exhaust, bankrupt or attritionally break the will and commitment of those countering such security issues. A higher level operational approach that attacks the trunk of the tree by targeting the radical and violent extremist organisations responsible for exploiting instability and creating security threats can be a better approach. Such an approach in theory is more effective than focusing on removing the branches of instability and insecurity. However, addressing the trunk of the problem compared to the branches requires a greater commitment of time, capital and resources and can be an even longer term initiative which can again be fiscally exhausting and attritional on the commitment by those undertaking the task. In reality, even if enough time, effort, and resources are committed to countering the radical and extremist organisations who exploit instability and create insecurity, the roots of the tree remain intact. Thus, the tree can regrow over time. To prevent the regeneration and regrowth of the security threats it is necessary to remove its roots. This again, is an even greater commitment of time, capital and resources and typically involves strategic level initiatives that address the root causes of fragile, fragmenting, and failed regions, states, and localities.
Diagram 1 – a visual representation of the tree of instability and insecurity.
This simple analogy has its limits in that it is likely that no one level of approach will work in reality i.e., simply focusing on tactical branches, operational trunks or strategic roots independently would likely be impractical and ineffective. For example, consider a fragile locality within which radical and violent extremist organizations use terrorism involving IEDs, small arms and light weapons and human rights abuses to exert their control and influence in the absence of proper governance and in opposition to repressive security forces all of which has exacerbated preexisting food insecurity. Starting from the top down in terms of the tree of instability and insecurity, it is unlikely that efforts to counter the use of IEDs, overmatch small arms and light weapons threats and attempt to implement human rights awareness and enforcement on the tactical level would be effective without certain operational level initiatives to attack, deter or degrade the capabilities of the radical and violent extremist organisations. Similarly, initiatives against the radical and violent extremist organizations would unlikely prove to be long term sustainable or effective without strategic level reform of the security forces. This is likely to involve amongst other things, security sector reform and implementation of appropriate governance and accountability mechanisms. The issues of poor governance and food insecurity are both significant in terms of their impact on stability and security. They require initiatives to address them that are often long-term and strategic in nature. Attempting a bottom-up approach from the roots of the tree of instability and insecurity, in which security sector reform, coupled with political and judicial reform along with agricultural development initiatives would be possible if the radical and violent extremist organisations were also countered, contained, or captured at the same time. It is also necessary, that as such strategic initiatives and operational efforts are undertaken, that appropriate tactical actions and risk mitigation measures are implemented and sustained to create the secure and stable space for such initiatives and efforts to take place.
CONCLUSION
In reality any holistic approach to addressing instability and insecurity in a fragile, fragmenting, or failed region, state, or locality will require simultaneous approaches at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels. This is equivalent to putting in place a strategy that has actions and initiatives properly resourced, coordinated and executed to simultaneously remove multiple branches, cut at the trunk, and dig out the roots most likely while under the watchful eye of local populace and the international community. This is not an easy undertaking, requiring effective synchronization and political buy in for the commitment of the time, capital and resources required. However, when organizations are attempting to address instability and insecurity in a fragile, fragmented, or failed region, state, or locality, it may be prudent to remain mindful of what success may require. They may then attempt to work within their means envelope and in collaboration with acceptable partner organisations, by pooling resources, to attain as best they can, their desired ends, by implementing the most appropriate ways at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels. ■
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Paul Amoroso is an explosive hazards specialist and has extensive experience as an IED Threat Mitigation Policy Advisor working in East Africa. He served in the Irish Army as an IED Disposal and CBRNe officer, up to MNT level, and has extensive tactical, operational, and strategic experience in Peacekeeping Operations in Africa and the Middle East. He has experience in the development of doctrine and policy and was one of the key contributors to the United Nations Improvised Explosive Device Disposal Standards and the United Nations Explosive Ordnance Disposal Military Unit Manual. He has a MSc in Explosive Ordnance Engineering and is in the process of completing his dissertation for a MA in Strategic Studies and is working with the Small Arms Survey. He runs a consultancy, Assessed Mitigation Options (AMO), which provides advice and support in relation to weapons and explosive hazard risk mitigation. This article reflects his own views and not necessarily those of any organisation he has worked for or with in developing these ideas.
Linkedin profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-amoroso-60a63a42/
Download the article as a PDF: CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK TO HOLISTICALLY APPROACH INSTABILITY & INSECURITY – by Paul Amoroso article – COUNTER-IED REPORT, Winter 2021-22